Experts fear that the bloodthirsty throngs, which were first noticed in the United States in 2017, will continue their rampage, siphoning life out of animals and eventually transmitting diseases, potentially deadly ones, to humans.

The tick—the Asian longhorned tick, or Haemaphysalis longicornis—was first found terrorizing a sheep in New Jersey in 2017 and has established local populations in at least 10 states since it sneaked in. Its invasive sweep is due in large part to the fact that a single well-fed female can spawn up to 2,000 tick clones parthenogenetically—that is, without mating—in a matter of weeks. And unlike other ticks that tend to feast on a victim for no more than seven days, mobs of H. longicorni can latch on for up to 19 days.

Bloody blitzes

According to the new report out of North Carolina, the latest victim there was a young bull in Surry County at the border with Virginia. At the time of its death, the doomed beast had more than 1,000 ticks on him. The official cause of death was acute anemia, which is typically associated with severe hemorrhaging. The bull’s owner had lost four other cattle the same way since 2018.

The case echoes the first report of the tick, which stalked a lone sheep paddocked in an affluent neighborhood in New Jersey in August 2017. The animal was besieged by hundreds of ticks, which scrambled up the legs of health investigators when they walked in to survey the situation.

H. longicorni originates—as its moniker suggests—in Asia, specifically, eastern China, Russia, Korea, and Japan. In recent decades, it has made its way into Australia, New Zealand, and several Pacific islands, as well as the US.

Infectious bites

In China and South Korea, the tick is known to spread SFTSV, short for the Severe fever with thrombocytopenia syndrome virus. SFTSV is related to Heartland virus found in the US and has had reported mortality rates up to 30%.

H. longicorni is also known to transmit Rickettsia japonica, the cause of Japanese spotted fever, and Theileria orientalis, which is behind cattle theileriosis. It has also been found harboring relatives of US pathogens, including those that cause anaplasmosis, ehrlichiosis, babesiosis, and the Powassan virus. ​

So far, health investigators haven’t found the ticks harboring any of these germs. But there’s a risk that at any point they could be introduced, Dr. Pritt notes. And, if they are, the diseases could easily spread like wildfire through the ravenous hordes of ticks.

The 66-year-old New York man who had the first recorded H. longicorni bite was healthy before and three months after the encounter. He found the tick on his right leg after working on his lawn and brought it to a Lyme Disease Diagnostic Center, suspecting he might be at risk of Lyme disease.

Though the biting tick was disease free, when investigators went back to the man’s lawn and a nearby park, they easily found more of the ticks. More concerning, the ticks were lurking in short, sunny grass, whereas other ticks in the area tend to stick to shady, wooded areas.

The authors note that, “the findings of this investigation suggest that public health messages may need to be changed, at least in certain geographic areas, to emphasize a wider range of potential tick habitats.”

H. longicorni populations are known to exist in Arkansas, Connecticut, Kentucky, Maryland, New Jersey, New York, North Carolina, Pennsylvania, Virginia, and West Virginia.

I'm a fan of not getting disease. I really like that the article and the greater scientific community are concerned about this. But my god, the idea that it's possible to be sucked dry of all my blood by a tick army makes Lyme disease sound like happy fun times by comparison.

Thanks to this article, my next big medical concern is going to be raw, bleeding skin across most of my body from the vigorous, hours-long scrubbings I'll be giving myself after every trip outside.

Look at it this way: A single tick or even a couple won't do you in. It's when you're covered by hundreds or thousands of the bastards that you have to worry.

In which case, scrub away!

Where I come from, a single tick can very much do you in. We get paralysis ticks, which inject you with toxin while feasting on your blood, and cause tick paralysis. We were told that it set in after 3 days of a tick being attached to you, and to remove (carefully lest it vomit back into your bloodstream) and destroy any ticks as soon as you found them. Leading to an uncomfortable night where my parents struggled for hours to remove one from my leg that I'd picked up on a school trip. (I still have the scar.)

Oddly enough, emus seem to be immune to tick paralysis, other native species not so much.

Found the Aussie!

Was it the talk of paralysis ticks or emus?

Not like I was hiding, or the only Australian who's posted on this thread so far.

And that's probably enough internet for me today! That picture of the ticks on the ear is horrifying. Like, holy hell. Forget the "gray goo" end-of-the-world scenario where nanobots reproduce ad infinitum, we might have a "red goo" scenario where it's fucking vampire ticks that can clone themselves thousands of times instead.

I know someone whose kid had a tick on the most sensitive part of his dangly bits. Removing them hurts like hell when it's just on your chest or an arm or something. I don't want to even imagine what that removal was like.

As a country boy whose had that more than once I can assure you it is every bit the nightmare fuel you imagine it to be.

And that's probably enough internet for me today! That picture of the ticks on the ear is horrifying. Like, holy hell. Forget the "gray goo" end-of-the-world scenario where nanobots reproduce ad infinitum, we might have a "red goo" scenario where it's fucking vampire ticks that can clone themselves thousands of times instead.

I know someone whose kid had a tick on the most sensitive part of his dangly bits. Removing them hurts like hell when it's just on your chest or an arm or something. I don't want to even imagine what that removal was like.

As a country boy whose had that more than once I can assure you it is every bit the nightmare fuel you imagine it to be.

Once is unfortunate. Twice starts to look kinky.

Or maybe it should be "Once bitten, twice shrinking back into your abdominal cavity."

And that's probably enough internet for me today! That picture of the ticks on the ear is horrifying. Like, holy hell. Forget the "gray goo" end-of-the-world scenario where nanobots reproduce ad infinitum, we might have a "red goo" scenario where it's fucking vampire ticks that can clone themselves thousands of times instead.

I know someone whose kid had a tick on the most sensitive part of his dangly bits. Removing them hurts like hell when it's just on your chest or an arm or something. I don't want to even imagine what that removal was like.

As a country boy whose had that more than once I can assure you it is every bit the nightmare fuel you imagine it to be.

edit, BTW, tick removal doesn't "hurt like hell." Somebody with long fingernails grabs it as close to the skin as possible, slowly (so's to not behead it) pulls it out, or does the equivalent with tools.Now, if somebody grabs a swollen tick by the tummy, squeezes and yanks? Yeah, don't do that. That injects the tick's stomach contents. Worse than powdering the tick's behind and having heating effects drive a smaller amount of stomach contents into you.No gators were fed cannonballs in the making of this comment.

Since these ticks are so virulent, I'm hoping some group engineers a fungus or virus designed specifically to wipe them out. In fact, let's just start hitting parasites with them. If we're going to crash the planet's biodiversity, it might as well get rid of a few nuisance pests.

This led me down the wikipedia rabbit hole - the Theilers were a significant family/name in the area I grew up (although long gone by the time I came around), and there's a Theiler Lane nearby. Arnold Theiler is the father of South African veterinary science, and his son Max won the Nobel Prize for Medicine in 1951 (yellow fever vaccine). I assumed the parasite genus Theileria was named after one of those two, but it turns out Arnolds daughter Gertrud was a parasitologist working on ticks and nematodes, and hence has a tick museum named after her. (http://www.arc.agric.za/arc-ovi/Documen ... Museum.pdf)High achievement seems to be a gene in some families!Max Theiler appears on the Honours boards at my alma mater for his Nobel prize. Elon Musk also finished school there, but not sure if he's on the Honours board (yet).

Why is this one particular farmer the only one with these ticks killing 5 of their animals?It isn't hard to eliminate ticks on a beast when they are discovered, so how are there so many that the animal can be killed, or why weren't they dealt with before it was so serious?

Farmer who doesn't live anywhere near the farm?

Or someone who's farm is large enough that they don't necessarily see large parts of the farm on a daily or even weekly basis. While I don't have experience of the US I've been on cattle properties in northern Australia where stock might only be rounded up 1-2 times per year.

And that's probably enough internet for me today! That picture of the ticks on the ear is horrifying. Like, holy hell. Forget the "gray goo" end-of-the-world scenario where nanobots reproduce ad infinitum, we might have a "red goo" scenario where it's fucking vampire ticks that can clone themselves thousands of times instead.

I know someone whose kid had a tick on the most sensitive part of his dangly bits. Removing them hurts like hell when it's just on your chest or an arm or something. I don't want to even imagine what that removal was like.

As a country boy whose had that more than once I can assure you it is every bit the nightmare fuel you imagine it to be.

edit, BTW, tick removal doesn't "hurt like hell." Somebody with long fingernails grabs it as close to the skin as possible, slowly (so's to not behead it) pulls it out, or does the equivalent with tools.Now, if somebody grabs a swollen tick by the tummy, squeezes and yanks? Yeah, don't do that. That injects the tick's stomach contents. Worse than powdering the tick's behind and having heating effects drive a smaller amount of stomach contents into you.No gators were fed cannonballs in the making of this comment.

My dad swears by Start Ya' Bastard as a tick removal system (never tried it myself).

Hmm, once I've got'em in the tweezers, I usually hold a light under them.

Pop! like micro-fire crackers. Plus, killing it with fire's the only way to be sure.

They say that, although I've had good luck slicing them in half longitudinally.They also say you can't crush a tick to death. My Leatherman says otherwise (once the tick takes on the shape of the serrations of the plier jaws...)

But fire is good. Fuck ticks.

I've always been amazed at their uncrushabl-ness. Well done

That's actually pretty interesting. My primary way to kill ticks found crawling on me is to put them between "flat" part of my thumbnails and squeeze until I feel them pop. Maybe that depends on the specific species, but at least the most prevalent one here in Scandinavia is very much popable by hand.

I have a plot of land just over 3 acres in size in one of the states with known infestations of the tick in question. On that plot of land are over 50 guinea fowl, some chickens, ducks, and turkeys. Translation for y'all: no ticks as they are assassinated on a daily basis by the various feathered non-stop eating machines, especially the guinea fowl. Step outside that plot of land and suffer the consequences as ticks will inevitably assault you en masse.

There is no problem so great that it can't be solved by a horde of hungry dinosaurs.

I have a plot of land just over 3 acres in size in one of the states with known infestations of the tick in question. On that plot of land are over 50 guinea fowl, some chickens, ducks, and turkeys. Translation for y'all: no ticks as they are assassinated on a daily basis by the various feathered non-stop eating machines, especially the guinea fowl. Step outside that plot of land and suffer the consequences as ticks will inevitably assault you en masse.

There is no problem so great that it can't be solved by a horde of hungry dinosaurs.

Spray tons and tons of permethrin around? I do get it might have many other negative consequences, but give it enough time and people will demand it no matter what (not necessarily permethrin, but some form of aggressive chemical containment nonetheless).

Obviously it might evolve resistance (or not, since it does lots of cloning), but resistance has a cost (DDT resistant mosquitoes famously had lower reproduction rates), so who know, it might work out.